Applying to college is stressful -- but you knew that. Students have a million things to worry about, from researching different programs to choosing their final list of schools, not to mention keeping up with the long list of deadlines. But it doesn't have to be that way. Here's a list of five common things people get wrong about the college admissions process, and avoiding them will save you a lot of stress in the long run. Sound off in the comments below with any additions and share your college de-stressing tips by tweeting @HuffPostTeen!1. Pretending to be someone you're not. Padding your resume with a million extracurriculars -- but nothing you are truly passionate about -- isn't going to help you find the college that is the perfect fit for you. Once you embrace who you are and what you love, you'll probably find that expressing yourself in your application will be much easier. 2. Not being aware of your social media footprint. Take that extra two mins and set your social media accounts to private until after the college application process is over. Do it now. Then read this piece on what NOT to post to college Facebook pages. 3. Forgetting to proofread. You're filling out tons of apps -- we get it. But do not, under any circumstances, accidentally use the wrong school's name in an essay or application. It happens more often than you would think. Buddy up with a friend and proofread each other's applications.4. Bombarding admissions staff with emails and phone calls. It's easy to forget that there are actual human beings on the other end of the phone and Internet when you have "urgent" questions about the admissions process. Keep in mind that the people who answer your phone calls are sometimes the same people who read your application. Don't be annoying. Don't panic. And always, always check the FAQ on the website before picking up the phone.5. Leaving your personal statement for the last minute. Your college essay is arguably the most important part of your application because it gives you the chance to tell the admissions counselors something real about you. This is why it's often daunting to get started, but try to keep this in mind: the first draft you write will not be the one you end up submitting, and it won't be perfect. But you have to start somewhere, and the sooner you start jotting down ideas, the better. The personal statement prompt on the Common Application stays consistent, so you don't have to wait until the month before it's due.

It’s no secret that the cost of going to college in the US has been rising—and fast. From 1982 to 2007, tuition climbed 439% while median family income only rose 147%. In the past five years it’s continued apace.

The situation is bad. But it isn’t quite as bad as many media reports portend, because grants, scholarships, and financial aid, which reduce the advertised tuition fees, are also growing fast. Just last month, the National Association of College and University Business Officers reported that colleges in the US are awarding grants and scholarships in the highest volumes ever, enough to make the average cost of school 45% less than the sticker price (paywall). The chart below shows how college costs—both advertised and actual—have changed since 2007, compared to inflation.

​ But why would schools offer more scholarships instead of simply hiking their prices less? According to Ronald Ehrenberg, an American labor economist, one of the reasons that tution keeps going up is that schools simply aren’t attempting to cut costs (pdf): With long lines of high quality applicants flocking to their doors, top institutions have chosen to maintain and increase quality largely by spending more, not by increasing efficiency, reducing costs, or reallocating funds…alumni also tend to discourage institutions from cutting almost anything by threatening to withhold contributions. Perhaps it’s easier for a school to increase its scholarship fund than it is to re-jigger the budget and keep tuition flat.

In any event, the situation is still not good. The actual cost of tuition has still been rising, even as median household income has sunk and public funding for state schools has fallen--by 7% in fiscal year 2012. And, unfortunately, the financial aid that is available often isn’t going to the poorest students who really need it, but instead to those who only need a little extra to cover their tuition, since that way the school can fund more students with the same amount of aid.

If Dawn Iacobbuci were a prospective MBA applicant instead of an accomplished professor, the MBA ranking she would most definitely consult before applying to business schools would be the annual list published by U.S. News & World Report.Iacobbuci’s preference isn’t without deep study or consideration. As senior associate dean of Vanderbilt University’s Owen School and a marketing professor who has also taught at Kellogg, Wharton and Owen, she has just completed a major study of the reliability and validity of three major rankings: U.S. News, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and The Financial Times.The professor, who does not have an MBA degree, looked at every full-time MBA ranking ever published by those three publications: 13 separates lists from BusinessWeek which began ranking schools in 1988 and has published updated rankings every two years; 15 rankings from The Financial Times, which began its list nearly ten years after BusinessWeek, and 27 lists from U.S. News & World Report which started rating MBA programs annually in 1987.Iacobbuci prefers U.S. News largely because she believes its ranking has shown greater reliability over the years and has greater validity. Her number crunching also found that every rank improvement toward the top on U.S. News yielded an additional $908.03 more on average for the school’s graduates in their first post-MBA job, significantly more than BusinessWeek‘s $605.27 or The Financial Times‘ $377.58.“I would look at U.S. News as a result of this research,” she concludes, “partly due to objectivity of the measures and components that go into the ranking. They are less easily gamed. The Financial Times is pitched to favor the more international schools, and the BusinessWeek student poll has a good deal of variability to it. You don’t want to see schools slipping up and down and all over the place. If there is that much variance, what good can there possibly be to the ranking?”From an academic viewpoint, variability is bad if you’re looking for consistency from one ranking to another, or as this academic puts it, “The simplest expression of reliability is that of consistency.” And it’s true that wide swings in a school’s rank over a short-period of time tend to lack credibility. That’s why Poets&Quants routinely points out the biggest changes in every ranking which tend to occur further down each list when the differences in the underlying data are slim at best.Iacobbuci, however, focuses less on this issue than the variability in the student satisfaction poll used by BusinessWeek. “Comparing across media,” she writes, “we see that BusinessWeek varied quite a bit over its first 15 years or so, and it has become stable since approximately 2004. We can laud the U.S. News as yielding the most stable results, year to year, even from its inception.From an applicant perspective, however, measuring the subjective opinions of the latest graduating class—which is what BusinessWeek tries to do every two years—can yield valuable information about the quality of the full MBA experience. It’s not unreasonable to assume, for example, that a school can fall down on critical elements of what makes a top-ranked MBA worthwhile, from the ability of a school to get students the jobs they want to the quality of the teaching in the classroom. Those things tend to be variable–and important to applicants.For the latest MBA rankings, see PoetsandQuants.com for our composite list:

The plight of the unpaid intern is improving. Not because businesses are paying more for summer helpers, but because colleges are stepping in to pay when companies can't, or won't, compensate student hires. Schools have long granted stipends for stints in nonprofits and the arts, where unpaid labor is common, but now they are paying the way for students to work at profit-making enterprises, including a New York money-management firm, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm and even a General Motors Co. GM -3.04% plant.Colleges' job-placement rates have come under intense scrutiny as cost-conscious families, stung by rapidly rising tuition, want proof that universities can deliver on both academic and career fronts. Paying the Way Some ways that colleges subsidize unpaid internships:Washington & Lee University Wages and stipends vary; general stipends are $1,000-$3,000. Recent employers: Chefs Feed, a restaurant app; public relations firm PeppercomHamilton College Average stipend is just under $2,400. Recent employers: Washington law and lobbying firm Williams & Jensen PLLC; Priority Capital ManagementUniversity of Richmond Interns receive $2,400-$4,000 for up to 10 weeks of work; average stipend $3,700. Recent employers: Memorial Sloan-Kettering; Christie's While career-services officers say they aren't thrilled to foot the bill, they need students to gain the skills and experience that will eventually get them hired. The practice of "hiring" unpaid interns has come under renewed fire lately, with a federal judge's ruling last week that a movie studio's unpaid intern program violated labor laws. University of Richmond has supported unpaid research and nonprofit work for years, but created more than 100 new fellowships this year for students with unpaid internships at for-profit enterprises. In all, the school awarded 300 fellowships, averaging $3,700 apiece. Employers ranged from a New York City hospital to Christie's auction house. Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal More colleges are helping to pay when companies don't compensate student interns. Pictured, Ujjwal Pradhan, a student at Hamilton College, received a $4,800 stipend for his unpaid position at Priority Capital Management, a money-management firm based in New York. Funding for the awards came from alumni and other donations, as the development office spread word that students needed additional support for the internships. Defiance College in Defiance, Ohio, is enticing local employers to hire its students by covering half of minimum-wage earnings for up to 10 hours a week, or about $38.50 a week under Ohio rates. It listed 74 internship opportunities in the latest academic year, with employers including a veterinary clinic, a Biggby Coffee franchise and PSMI Corp., a firm that handles some staffing for General Motors.The incentive is small, and some participating firms say they would hire the students regardless of the funds, but it does put Defiance students on employers' radars. "$40 is $40," says Sue Strausbaugh, who runs the local Biggby. Erin Rhodes, a Defiance marketing major, is spending her summer running quality-control reports on engine blocks produced at the local GM plant, earning $10 an hour. Ms. Rhodes, who just completed her second year at Defiance, says the data-heavy project doesn't exactly fit with her major and career goals, but she is glad to have the line on her résumé. According to Don Schooley, a PSMI program manager, GM picks the talent, but PSMI handles payroll. A GM spokesman says the company was aware some of the workers' wages were being paid by Defiance College. Hamilton College received 187 stipend applications this year, up from 116 last year, for unpaid positions in government, nonprofit and for-profit enterprises. Students must secure internships on their own—with help from the career services office, if desired—and then apply for the aid. This year, the 66 awards averaged just under $2,400 apiece. Ujjwal Pradhan, a rising Hamilton junior majoring in economics and mathematics, received a $4,800 stipend after securing an unpaid position at New York-based money manager Priority Capital Management LLC. Mr. Pradhan spends his days analyzing corporate bonds and compiling research reports on potential investments. He says an analyst at the firm is serving as a mentor for the summer. The 20-year-old Nepal native says he couldn't afford to work for free, but struggled to find a paying finance internship, since most Wall Street internship programs aimed at undergraduates target rising seniors. Hamilton's career center introduced Mr. Pradhan to Jim Ely, the firm's chief executive and founder, and offered the stipend to cover rent, food and transportation. "It is primarily an educational program," says Mr. Ely, noting that interns don't make investment decisions or deal directly with clients. As long as companies aren't forced to pay the trainees, critics say, they probably won't. It is "laudable" that schools want to help all students, not just affluent ones, get ahead in the job market, says Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation. But funding unpaid jobs at for-profit employers, he says, "may actually be supporting an illegal internship, at an employer who can very much afford to pay." The financial downturn increased the "sleaze factor" among employers, Philip Gardner, director of Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute, wrote in a recent report on unpaid internships. Employers "offer work they need done, under the guise of internships, but without pay." Federal laws mandate that unpaid internships meet certain criteria, including that the experience benefit the intern and the employer derives no "immediate advantage" from the intern's work. On campus and off, the tide of opinion may be turning against unpaid work. In addition to last week's ruling that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated labor laws by not paying two production interns working on the 2010 film "Black Swan," a former intern on Monday filed suit against Warner Music Group and Atlantic Records with similar allegations regarding his 2007-2008 unpaid internship, the Associated Press reported. A Fox spokeswoman said the company is "disappointed" with the ruling and is seeking to have it reversed. Fox is owned by News CorpNWSA -1.31% ., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.Warner declined to comment on pending litigation. Earlier this year, New York University students circulated a petition asking the career services office to stop posting ads for unpaid internships, calling such jobs "illegal" and "exploitative." So far, however, schools seem unwilling to halt the practice. A recent survey from Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute found that nearly 100% of schools welcome requests for unpaid labor from government and nonprofit agencies, and upward of 84% allow for-profit companies to do so.Originally Posted On: Wall Street Journal By: MELISSA KORN

Here are the things that MBAs that are going to be startup founders should learn about how startups -- but often don't.1. No amount of strategic planning will ever substitute for managing your cash flow. Financial statements are great. The most important one is your bank account statement.2. There are always more things to do than there is time to do them. Startups are a continuous exercise in deciding what not to do. You can sometimes win by just not doing things faster than your competition.3. Sleep is that time you’re working on startup problems with your eyes closed.4. It helps not to call people “human resources”. They’re people. And, as it turns out, people like to be treated like people. Go figure.5. No amount of academic theories on efficient pricing will prepare you completely for what people will actually do. Finding the “optimal” price is really hard. In the meantime, remember that a sub-optimal price is a lot better than no price at all. Without a price, you don't have sales. Without sales, you don't have a real business.6. Price discrimination (in an economic sense) is a wonderful thing. Except that it often ignores the real costs in terms of organizational complexity. Every time you add a new product or product option a small part of your company dies.7. There are an infinite number of ways to spend money on marketing. You have no idea what’s actually going to work. The idea is to experiment broadly and learn lessons cheaply. On a related note, no amount of MBA marketing classes will prepare you for the day that you have to produce leads in order to close sales. As it turns out, marketing is about more than product feature matrices and the right shade of blue for your logo.8. To recruit the best people, fair compensation and equity are only a start. Company culture and a demonstrated passion for your vision is hugely important. Oh, and your vision should be on the larger path to truth, justice and overall goodness. For an example of a pretty good slide deck on culture, check out Culture Code.9. There’s a lot of value to being likable. Good things happen when people like you. When people like you, bad things have less of a chance of being fatal. I advise being likable. That’s why I advise against being an investment banker after getting an MBA. (I also advise against being an investment banker before getting an MBA). No disrespect to investment bankers. Some of my best friends were investment bankers at one time.10. Advanced game theory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational “players”. It’s like trying to design a real car that’s going to be driven on a theoretically frictionless surface, with no air resistance and no idiots on the road.What are your top startup lessons learned that even the top MBA schools don't teach?

When do you know it’s time to leave your current job? You are offered a dream job with twice the salary? (This one is easy: Take it!) Or you hear rumours of another round of restructuring/rationalising around the corner? Your new boss is a nightmare to work with? You need to notice the signals and respond appropriately to help yourself move on. When it's a company problem - If layoffs are happening across the board or within your department, you know it’ll be your turn. If there is a takeover in progress that promises to eliminate jobs, start networking and explore other options. Company relocation, a downturn in business prospects, or simply tightening up budget can leave you unemployed. When you see these signs, start updating your resume and get it out of the door.When you're in the wrong place - More reasons for change: You are misemployed. Your manager steals credit and has subordinates take the blame. Your co-workers are sabotaging your projects. You find the environment too hostile for you to succeed. Any of these situations would suggest that you need to change your job.When you stop loving your work - While there are a million external factors, the most important reason to consider a career move is when you stop enjoying what you do. You are drawing a decent salary, your boss is close as a friend but you still feel miserable about going to work everyday because it’s not exciting to you anymore – this is the sign. You need to rethink about what really ignites you and start to have conversations to see if there are opportunities internally and externally.When you're overworked - You work 14 hours a day and come back to office during weekends. Your productivity level is low and can’t seem to get things down. You feel exhausted, frustrated and angry all the time. Suddenly you realise even your family complains about you. If your job brings you so many problems and it even affects your personal life, a change needs to be made. Making a list of pros and cons can help you identify what you like about what you do and what you don't like. It will also provide information you can use in talking to your supervisor about changing your responsibilities or role. What you need to doStart planning for a change while you are still happy in your current role. Take advantage of all the opportunities you're given to develop new skills, network with other people. Ideally, you will leave only when you have another job. In case you don’t, stay on top of your finances and have 3 to 6 months’ salary set aside for the rainy days. When you leave, give your employer a verbal and a brief written notice, and be gracious and diplomatic. Emphasise that this is your choice, a golden opportunity you cannot afford to miss. Even if your company or boss is the worst in the world, you don’t want to burn the bridges as you never know when or how paths will cross again.

By the time you’re an adult operating in the working world, you should have absorbed the message that you need to think before you speak. Still, some employees haven’t and others don’t understand just how bad some of the things they say come across to others.

Whether you realize it or not, there are some key phrases that will make any boss instantly crazy. Protect your job by striking these four from your conversations.

“That’s not how we did it at my old job.”

And your point is…? This statement is a problem because it doesn’t help. If you think the old company did something better, say that without making it sound like you miss them. More helpful would be to say something like: “We found XYZ software to be a better fit for this application, and I think that would translate here.”

“Although managers like you to apply your learnings from past experiences, no one wants to hear how great your last company was,” says Christine DiDonato, founder of CareerRev, a leadership development training company. “If it was that great, why did you leave?”

“So-and-so isn’t doing his work.”

If you’d like bonus points for getting everyone in the office to hate you, not just the boss, become the workplace tattletale. This statement is awful not just because it’s childish, but because what your co-worker does is none of your business. “Focus on your performance and not your colleague. The boss will take care of that issue. Statements like this only create bad relationships and poor team performance,” says Steve Langerud, a workplace consultant.

“How’d I do? How’d I do? How’d I do?”

Fishing for compliments is a career-limiting move, according to Jonathan B. Smith, founder and CEO ofChiefOptimizer, a business development solution for rapidly growing companies. When you were hired, it was for your confidence, skills and ability to work independently. Don’t throw that all away by seeking constant reassurance. “The addition of an employee to an organization should bring more capability, capacity and additional profitability to an organization,” Smith explains. “An employee who is insecure and needy is a drag on morale, productivity and profitability. You don't want to be the employee that fishes for compliments, constantly looks for reassurances and is repeatedly apologizing for simple oversights.”

“That’s not my job.”

If all the selfish office misanthropes can ever get it together enough to form an organization, this will be their motto. And it’s the worst statement on this list.

Similarly terrible phrases include:

● “This is not what I signed up for.”● “Can’t someone else do that?”● “Will I get a promotion or a raise if I do that?”

These statements demonstrate “a bad attitude, lack of effort, lack of commitment, and/or lack of caring. These are the statements of someone who is not a team player and cares only about themselves,” says Todd Cherches, adjunct professor in HR at NYU and CEO of BigBlueGumball, a management and leadership development consulting firm.

If you are the hiring manager and is mainly responsible for the recruitment of your company employees, it is your job and main responsibility to make sure that you are able to scout for the best hire that will be your company’s assets instead of liabilities. Sometimes, it takes creating a list of traits on what to look for from an ideal candidate for a job to help you in the decision making process when hiring applicants. Major companies invest on hiring the best people for their company and as a hiring manager you are in the best position to look for the best talents to work for your company. Here are 10 traits that you should know for your next hire that will guide you in the selection process in finding the perfect candidate to hire.

1. Trustworthy Trust is an essential element for a good business. Your company will likely grow when its employees are trustworthy and sincere in their services. You don’t want to work with someone who often tells a lie and compromises your business operations and other confidential matters. You can avoid hiring employees with a deceptive character by scrutinizing through their credentials and verify the truthfulness and authenticity of their documents and the information they provide in their resume. You need competent employees who are honest about their capabilities instead of those who brag about it but with a bad follow-through. 2. Creativity As your business starts growing, you need new hires endowed with creativity with the ability to think outside of the box. Your company should always welcome great, creative ideas in order to bring a healthier environment with fresh minds that will introduce your company with creative initiatives. Not everyone has a creative mind and if you find a new talent with a creative mind, try to consider whether your company can benefit from that applicant’s creativity. 3. Flexibility Company needs to embrace changes in order to prosper in the industry where they belong, especially when their competition is tough. Because product and service demands may constantly change, the job description of your employee might need some changes and your employees need to be flexible as well in order to make them cope in the changing demands from their job. It is thus essential to look from your future hires the quality of adaptability and openness to change in taking bigger and new challenges imposed on their job. 4. Communication skills An applicant’s ability to communicate can boost your company performance especially when dealing with important stakeholders of your company. In your future hires it is essential to gauge the communication skill of your applicants. It is worth considering that bad communicators can be bad for your business and can bring the whole organization down from its stakeholders. Try to invest on good communicators who can build up your business reputation and market your products and services positively. 5. Passion Passion keeps an employee more loyal and dedicated in their services. You can seldom hear employees complaining about their work when they are passionate with what they do. When hiring for a job, try to gauge whether an applicant has a passion on the kind of job being offered. It is to your company’s advantage when you hire passionate individuals who can contribute a significant service for your company and sometimes giving you services even more than what is required from them. 6. Education Education is an important qualification that you need to consider when hiring applicants to a job. You should be able to determine whether an applicant’s educational qualifications are relevant to the job position you are filling up. Training is most of the time required for your new hires but it makes training easier to an employee whose education is in line with the position they are being trained for. New hires whose educational training and skills are in line with the job descriptions are almost ready to perform on day 1. 7. Work ethics Employees with good work ethics are those who are willing to go the extra mile in their work performance. This is an important consideration when hiring applicants because those who may lack educational qualifications for a job will likely willing to learn and perform better than those who have good educational qualifications but with poor work ethics. This will help you decide which applicant will be a performing asset for your company. 8. Integrity An employee with a strong integrity is likely to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses and willing to improve their performance at work. They are also humble enough to admit their mistakes and willing to make up for their shortcomings. This quality of an employee will prevent him from talking negatively about their employers or their previous superior as well. An applicant’s integrity is one of the moral qualities that you should look for when 9. Positivity A performing employee is one who shows a positive attitude towards work and challenges that they may encounter with their job responsibilities. This kind of trait allows an employee to manage a stressful working environment and promotes a pleasant environment when working with others. This kind of characteristic of an employee can be encouraging to other employees as well. Try to look for this kind of attitude from your future hires as they can be an asset in your organization by making the positive attitude spread around your company. 10. Leadership and interpersonal skills You should look for an employee with a good leadership and interpersonal skill which is valuable for team building in your organization. An outgoing employee who is open in expressing his ideas with his other team members can bring out the best in your team and promotes organizational growth. You can keep an eye on individuals with a good leadership skill who can be helpful in exercising useful initiative to keep your company’s productivity and operation going with less supervision needed.

Stacy Carter is a guest blogger and business writer. She covers career, hiring, personal development and business articles. She is good at technology and marketing niches. She writes for Cell Spy site.Originally Posted On: Under30ceo.comImage Credit: Shutterstock.com

Facebook wasn't a topic of conversation in high schools 10 years ago — it hadn't even been invented yet. One decade and a billion users later, and with the introduction of Twitter, Instagram and other social networking platforms, it's become an unavoidable cultural commodity. If you're a teacher, your students most likely have profiles, and vice versa.

There are plenty of examples of Facebooking-gone-wrong in the education field so far. There's the teacher in Pittsburgh, Pa., whose colleagues discovered her photo with a stripper online, and the Boston-area teen who was arrested for alleged "terrorist threats" in a rap video he posted to Facebook. Mashable reached out to a few schools across the U.S. to ask about how they've adjusted to the digital era. Our primary question: Should there be an overall policy for social media use? Hans Mundahl is the director of technology and integration at the New Hampton School, a private boarding high school in New Hampton, N.H. The school is a "one-to-one iPad" institution, meaning every student and teacher is provided with a tablet. "We have three levels of policies, loosely phrased, when it comes to social media," Mundahl tells Mashable. "The first is a pretty straightforward policy that teachers are not to friend or follow any of their students on any social media channel. We, teachers and staff, are sort of the 'parents-plus.' It's important to establish great relationships with students offline that are not necessarily 'friend' relationships online It's important to establish great relationships with students offline that are not necessarily 'friend' relationships online." The second policy has to do with Facebook groups. Mundahl said it's common for the school to create groups for their sports teams and update them with photos, game schedules and rosters. "The only policy here is that the coaches work with me, and the rest of the social media team, to set up the right privacy controls," he says. "It's a great way for someone — say, an eighth-grader thinking about joining the lacrosse team in high school — to 'meet' the current team and get a glimpse at what it's like to be a part of it. But, even though they're loosely interacting, the actual players and coaches are not to be Facebook friends." The final policy is about respecting students' personal social media presences. In other words: No online "sting" operations. "We do [conduct] some passive monitoring for our school's name using TweetDeck. Usually, the results are about the new Hampton Inn hotel or something else unrelated," Mundahl says. "But sometimes we'll find a student, whose profile is public, who's raising a bit of a red flag with their posts or tweets. We'll normally update the student's adviser, and sometimes send the student an email saying, 'Hey, by the way, we came across this post where you weren't representing yourself or the school well — just want to let you know.' But no punishments are issued," he says. Robert Dill, who teaches government, psychology and sociology at the public Forest Hills High School in Sidman, Pa., says it's not uncommon for students and teachers to be connected on social media. "We don't have a 'policy' in place, necessarily, but it's definitely an evolving process," he says. "Initially, when Facebook and everything started exploding, the school district frowned on teachers using it, fearing there would be a miscommunication or improper use with students. "Over the years, though, it's changed. Teachers are still cautioned to not discuss a student's grades or performance over social media — but really, that's the only rule of thumb Teachers are still cautioned to not discuss a student's grades or performance over social media — but really, that's the only rule of thumb. I know several teachers who are Facebook friends with their students." Dill's not one of them — instead, he interacts with students on Twitter. If someone has a question about an assignment due date, or needs clarification on a subject matter, they'll tweet at Dill. He'll respond, usually through email. "If it's a quick 'yes or no' question, like, 'Is this due tomorrow?', I'll just tweet back at them," he says. "But for longer answers, I'll switch over to email." Dill follows his students back on Twitter, and occasionally comes across some not-so-great-for-a-teacher-to-see tweets. But, similar to Mundahl, he said he's not out to play detective on anyone. "There have been some situations in which a student has tweeted something disparaging, usually about a coach or a teacher — but I don't comment," he says. "I strongly believe this can be used positively. By allowing our teachers to connect through social media with students, we both understand the risks that come with it. I strongly believe in the First Amendment, and that this is a good forum for communication, but you just need to be cautious with it — especially with pictures." A rule that should also apply to teachers, he adds. "It's a lot more common in corporations — you know, places saying what's OK to post, things to avoid," he says. "But I think you're starting to see it can be applied to schools as well. Each one is different, of course, so for it to work best they need to be adjusted for each individual school and its activities." But there are right and wrong ways of doing so. A handful of employers, he says, have asked their employees and job applicants for their social media passwords: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — the whole nine yards. Ten states have outlawed the practice, and the SNOPA bill (Social Networking Online Protection Act), introduced in April, is being pushed at the federal level to make asking employees for their social media passwords illegal in every state. "This is obviously an extreme example, and it's certainly not the right way to do it," Tabibi says. "Social media policies are not meant to be some sort of restrictive or privacy-violating blanket. But if you take your community's culture and values into consideration, you can nail down some sort of structure that will prevent both the staff and students from getting into trouble down the road. You just need to address it from all sides of the coin." Does your school have a social media policy? If not, do you believe there should be one in place? Or is it unnecessary? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

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